


Til Death Did Us Part

by MaeveBran



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-31 07:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3968981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaeveBran/pseuds/MaeveBran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry goes to see a sick Nora in the asylum after she's confined there for murder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Til Death Did Us Part

Dr. Henry Morgan walked behind the Doctor, in charge of the Charring Cross Asylum, down the hall between the cells. Fifty years later and the place still gave him nightmares. This wasn't the first time he'd been back. He'd been called to treat patients here before but this time he wasn't visiting a patient, he was visiting his wife. 

Henry supposed she is still his wife since they are both alive but he has died several times in between. Did that make a difference? Did the death in the jail cell invalidate the “til Death do us part” vow? For that matter did his death on the slave ship? Henry had never actually thought about it. He had considered his marriage to Nora over when she left him locked up in this place. What did he owe his former wife? His first inclination was nothing, but he had loved her once so here he was.

“Dr. Morgan,” The other Doctor said. “We're here.” He unlocks the cell and lets Henry in. “I'll be back in an hour to let you out.” He locked Henry in with Nora.

“Henry?” Nora asked from her seat on the bed. “Is that really you?”

“It is,” Henry said as he stepped close to her.

“You must be glad to see me here,” she said.

“No,” he said. “I wouldn't wish this on anyone.”

“I had no idea what I was doing when I sent you here,” she said. “I'm sorry.”

“Too little too late, Nora,” he said. “You've only been here a week. Imagine what a year here would be like. They treated my with hydro therapy. Have you heard of it?” She shakes her head. “They tied my to a board, tilted me backwards, placed a towel over my face and poured water over me until I was choking. Repeatedly for weeks at a time.” Nora shrank back in horror. “After a year they transferred me to a prison. I eventually got out when my cellmate helped me hang myself so I could revive elsewhere.”

“I am so sorry, Henry,” Nora cried. “I had no idea. You were talking like a crazy man. I knew I had to do something. Can you ever forgive me?”

“For committing me, I can,” Henry said. “I did a long time ago. I just wanted you to know why I could never claim you as my wife, Nora. As far as I'm concerned our 'til Death do us part' ended with my death in that cell.”

“They told me you had disappeared,” she said. “I considered myself a widow from that moment. But I could never love someone else. So I never remarried.”

“I said I could forgive you for committing me,” he said. “What I can not forgive is you trying to expose me and killing the woman I was courting.”

“I never meant to kill her,” Nora said. “I would never have fired that shot if I had known she'd try to protect you.”

“You were so against me proving my claim, you committed me,” Henry said. “Then you tried to kill me to prove it in public. What changed?”

“The picture in the paper and the fact that in fifty years, you haven't aged,” she explained. “That was all the proof I needed after all these years. I thought maybe if we shared your gift, someone would figure out how to pass it on to others. I...”

“You want to not die,” Henry finished. “It doesn't work that way.”

“How does it work?” she asked, curious.

“I don't know,” he answered.

“You must have some ideas,” she returned. “I know you. You would have studied it until you had answers.”

“I have studied it but answers are,” he answered. “Elusive.”

“Then what do you know?” she asked.

“That I die,” Henry said, angrily. “I feel every second and every ounce of pain of every death. Hanging for heresy for instance. I can tell you what that feels like. I've hung twice and it is not an experience that improves with repetition.” Nora shrank back from his anger. He was getting angry and directing it at her. “I can also tell you what drowning, being buried in an avalanche, being shot in the heart, burning, and starving to death feel like.” He said looming over her. “If you're curious.”

“I'm sorry,” Nora cried. “So sorry. I should never have had you committed here.”

“No,” he agreed. “You shouldn't have. You should have believed your husband and tried to protect him. If you had then some of those deaths I've experienced in the last five decades would never have happened. I would have been happily living in our home with you instead of having to move every five years or so to keep my secret.”

“I had no idea what I was doing,” she admitted. “You scared me. You were talking crazy and trying to harm your self. You looked like a wild man and not the civilized man of good breeding I married. I did not know what to do. All I could think of was the articles I had read about this place and how they promised to help the people who weren't in their right minds. I thought I was helping you.”

Henry sat down beside her. He had known that was what motivated her – a desire to help him. But he had felt so betrayed he had never thought about how it had looked to her when he was trying to slit his wrists. He thought about what would he have done if their places were reversed and he couldn't honestly say he would have done anything differently. 

“I know,” he said. “You didn't though. I'm not likely to ever forget. I might forgive you but I can't forget.”

Nora nodded and coughed. The coughing got worse and Henry remembered why he was there. Regardless of what she had done to him, she needed his medical expertise and he'd give it. He pulled the stethoscope from is pocket and listened to her chest as she coughed.

“I'm sorry, Nora,” he said. “It has settled in your lungs and you need a place that is warm and dry. As long as you are here it will get worse.”

“I thought that might be the case,” she said as the coughing subsided for now.

“Then why did you ask for a doctor?” he asked.

“Because I knew you'd be the one to come,” she said and she started coughing again. “I had to see you one last time.” She held her hand out to him and he took it. Not because he forgave her, he wasn't ready to do that, but because he had loved her once and she had been flesh of his flesh as his wife. Her cough subsided again and her grip weakened and she died.

Henry laid her out on the bed and closed her eyes. He looked down at her and wondered what life would have been like if he had been able to have children with her and grow old together. It was the life he had wanted fifty years ago. He would be the grieving widower now but that life hadn't happened and he was sad that another life had ended. And slightly envious, too. Her life had ended while his stretched on. He would see her buried properly, next to the empty grave on their property and then disappear again. Death did part them after all.


End file.
